The present invention relates to the computerized management of client data, and more particularly, but not exclusively relates to the management of personal injury claims.
Every year vast numbers of personal injuries occur. The law encourages injured parties to seek compensation from those at fault. Typically, the injured party, the plaintiff, is able to obtain compensation from the party at fault, the defendant (or the defendant's insurer), by threatening a lawsuit. In the vast majority of cases, the claim of the injured party is settled before a trail on the merits results--even before a lawsuit is filed in many cases. By settling legitimate claims quickly, a more cost-effective conclusion is reached for all parties involved. Moreover, early settlements conserve judicial resources to the benefit of the public at large.
Unfortunately, efficiently settling these claims ordinarily requires the coordination and scheduling of doctors, lawyers, insurance representatives, and many others. Generally, the pursuit of a personal injury claim also requires the injured client's legal representative to gather and assimilate large quantities of documents and other information from a variety of sources. Once gathered, this information is used to negotiate a settlement of a claim or litigate the claim as the situation warrants. Frequently, poor coordination, scheduling, and information management leads to claims that are not settled promptly, properly, or fairly. Sometimes, a poorly managed claim becomes the subject of costly litigation which otherwise could have been avoided.
In addition, information collection tasks often limit the quantity of claims that can be handled at the same time by a given number of legal support personnel. The management of information collection required for some claims often distracts legal representatives from focusing on negotiation and litigation tasks for other claims. This distraction significantly adds to cost and hampers efficiency of the typical personal injury attorney's practice.
Conventional management schemes are often prone to errors due to the imposition of a manual entry in a client's file every time a document is sent or other noteworthy event takes place. Moreover, these schemes do not prompt the legal representative or support staff to assure the prompt advancement of the claim from one stage to the next. The untimely advancement of a claim through various information gathering and evaluation stages often results in a more expensive and protracted resolution of the claim compared to claims which are investigated, evaluated, and asserted more promptly. Also, conventional schemes often make it difficult to quickly access the status of a given client's case in response to a phone call or other request requiring a quick turn around.
Consequently, there remains a need for a personal injury management technique to automatically gather, track, schedule, and organize various aspects of personal injury claims. Preferably, such a system facilitates a rapid assessment of the status of each claim, and frees legal representatives from tedious and burdensome information management tasks. Instead, legal representatives may focus on negotiation and litigation of meritorious claims--increasing the number of claims which may be handled simultaneously and improving quality of the representation. As compared to conventional schemes, it is preferred that this management technique facilitate the handling of a larger number of claims by the same legal support staff with fewer errors. Moreover, the system promotes movement of a number of personal injury claims towards settlement in a timely manner. The present invention meets these needs and provides other significant advantages.